Voices and implementation of information technology in an elementary school classroom: A Hong Kong case study

Childhood Education, 2003 by Ngan, Ming-Yan, Lee, Chi-Kin John, Koo, Ramsey D

* IT use must provide students with a variety of experiences and contexts that integrate their skills and knowledge, both in and out of school

* Teachers must appreciate the rich potential of ICT for enabling more effective learning, while remaining subordinate to the school's learning goals, to ensure true cross-curricular integration

* Teachers must critically select appropriate digital content based on their students' needs and learning styles, and infuse it into the curriculum.

Teachers are expected to integrate computers and related technologies into the curriculum in ways that enhance learning. However, evidence shows that they often encounter problems and difficulties in their attempts to use IT in an integrated way. For example, an investigation of computer anxiety among rural secondary school teachers in Malaysia (Hong & Koh, 1998) revealed that, overall, teachers have some anxiety about using IT in the teaching and learning process, and that male teachers did not have significantly lower computer anxiety than their female counterparts. Moreover, teachers' computer anxiety varied, depending on such factors as computer ownership, the number of computer courses taken, and the amount of computer experience. These results also are representative of the situation in Hong Kong.

The quantitative and qualitative results from a study by Ngan and Lee (2002) reveal that teachers held very different conceptions of the nature and scope of IT, and, in fact, the majority of them were even uncertain about what IT is and so refused to attempt defining IT. Two major trends were noted: some teachers believed that IT should be confined primarily to the use of computers or computer-based environments for teaching and learning, while others held that IT includes audio/visual hardware and software, such as overhead projectors, televisions, videocamera recorders, laser video discs, etc. This second assessment is consistent with the views of secondary school teachers in Hong Kong (Lam & Lee, 2000) and of the primary school teachers in our case study.

Currently, publicly funded schools in Hong Kong use the same standard IT equipment and facilities, except for 20 IT pilot schools. Of these pilot schools, 10 are primary schools. They receive extra funding reserved for IT development in their schools. Whether or not they are IT pilot schools, all Hong Kong schools have the freedom to use their own discretion when establishing the IT equipment set-up for their school premises. Some schools allocate the computers and accessories equipment centrally in computer rooms. Other schools deploy computers in individual classrooms for teachers' use during class presentations. Schools sometimes rely on fundraising events to pay for additional computer hardware, if needed.

The Ngan and Lee (2002) study revealed that the average frequency of IT use by the 1,457 teachers questioned was 4.7314 times within one academic year (standard deviation was 12.4253, median was 1). When asked how often they used IT in class, 36.5 percent of the teachers answered "never," 30.0 percent said 1-5 times, 7.2 percent said 6-10 times, 8.3 percent stated 11 or more, and 18 percent did not answer. What is more, the majority of schools allocate computers without installing expensive LCD projectors in the classroom (Ngan & Lee, 2002), although that is changing as the price for LCD projectors gets lower and lower.